12 
BULLETIN 760, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
acreage was manured, at Los Angeles only 6 per cent, and at Salinas 
21 per cent. 
Sixty-nine per cent of the Los Angeles growers applied manure to 
the beet land, 62 per cent of the Oxnard growers, and 51 per cent of 
the Salinas growers. (See Table VII.) 
Table VII. — Manuring. 
District. 
Number 
of 
records. 
Acres 
manured 
per farm. 
Tons 
applied 
per acre. 
Hours of labor 
per acre. 
Labor 
cost per 
Man. 
Horse. 
acre. 
56 
28 
21 
8.33 
8.93 
3.90 
13. 70 
10.83 
11.82 
15. 81 
13.29 
13.21 
24.22 
28.02 
19.94 
So. 58 
5.59 
4.76 
A crew of 1 man and 2 horses was used in hauling manure on 
39 farms. On 27 farms the crew was 2 men and 2 horses. Twelve 
operators hauled with a crew of 1 man and 3 horses, while 13 
growers with the same number of horses provided an additional 
man to assist with the loading, etc. Two men and four horses 
were used on nine farms. Approximately two-thirds of these grow- 
ers hauled manure with wagons ; slightly more than one-third used 
spreaders. 
Twenty-six operators applied manure during the fall, 20 did 
this work throughout the winter months, a few at odd times during 
the fall, winter, and spring, and in one case the work was done in 
summer. 
There was little variation in labor cost for the first two areas 
($5.58 and $5.59), but at Salinas the total labor cost was consid- 
erably less ($1.76). 
PLOWING. 
For the successful production of an intensive crop like the sugar 
beet, it is necessary to have a deep, well-prepared seed bed. In re- 
gions where rainfall is limited and occurs mainly during the winter, 
as in California, it is especially desirable to practice deep fall plow- 
ing. This enables the soil to store a large quantity of water during 
the rainy period and increases the yield by facilitating the develop- 
ment of a beet with a long tap root. On the farms included in this 
study the depth of plowing ranged from an average of 9.5 inches in 
the Salinas district to 11.5 inches in the Oxnard district. 
Most of the plowing on the farms in question was done from Octo- 
ber 1 to February 1. A small number of growers practiced spring 
plowing, but all customarily had finished this operation by May 1. 
Eighteen men replowed all or a portion of their beet acreage dur- 
ing March and April to an average depth of 5 inches. The average 
